Clean Cut

Chapter Thirteen

Anna and Frank Brandon sat opposite each other in his station’s canteen. He was back to using that same cologne that made her eyes water, but he was still very friendly and greeted her warmly.

He stirred his milky coffee, shaking his head. ‘My God. From what I hear, you are up to your eyes in a nightmare case.’

‘You can say that again. It’s the reason I’m here.’

‘Yes, I know. Your boss had words with my SO. I can take you down to the incident room, if you can call it that; we’re about to close the file. We’ve come up with zilch — no identification. We’ve tried every avenue. I guess we’ll get what’s left of him buried.’

‘So you’ve still got his corpse?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d like to see it.’

‘Sure, I can run you over there, but you won’t get much, bar a bad night’s sleep; poor little sod.’

‘Doesn’t he have markings on his body, as if he’s been subjected to some kind of ritual?’

Brandon nodded. ‘Yeah, but we’re not sure what kind. We’ve even been to see a voodoo expert at London University. He seemed pretty clued up — spent a lot of time in Louisiana and New Orleans. We also went to see some quacks in the East End.’

‘Can I have all these contact numbers?’

‘Of course. He also suggested that they could be tribal markings, but we’ve not got any confirmation. All we know for sure is he was around six or seven years of age, and died from asphyxiation, but even the autopsy was hedgy. His last meal was rice and fish, but he was quite undernourished.’ He sighed. ‘He was somebody’s son and yet no one has come forward, which underlines the fact that he could have been brought into the country illegally.’

Brandon then changed the subject to ask about Arthur Murphy. Anna gave him all the details that she knew about his murder, and Brandon gave a soft laugh. ‘Well, he got what he deserved; and it saves the Government a lot of money — fifteen years of three meals a day. I bet old Harry was well pleased. He’d have strung him up but then, if he had his way, he’d give lethal injections to every paedophile and killer clogging up the prisons.’

Anna drained her coffee and said that she was due back at her own station by two, so if they could get cracking, she’d be grateful.

The incident room was as Brandon had described, with only a few officers present. She was given access to all the case reports and statements and was surprised at how much paperwork had been done without any result. The black bin-liner had been traced to a factory and matched with a bulk load made six months prior to the discovery. The interviews had focused on the area where the body had been found, but it seemed that every possible clue as to how the child had ended up in the canal had resulted in a blank. He was naked, so they could get nothing from any clothes and, without his hands or skull, they obviously had no dental records to check and no fingerprints to file. His DNA would be kept on record, along with a thick dossier of forensic photographs and autopsy reports. As Brandon had said, all they could do now was bury him.

Brandon did not accompany Anna into the cold storage; he’d already viewed the body too many times to want to see it again. She understood why. Seeing the tiny child’s headless body, his hands severed, was not something she would ever forget. His torso had deep welts across the chest and, between them, a cross had been cut into the skin. The tissue had had time to scar, which led them to deduce that the cuts had been inflicted some weeks before he had died. This was further horror, to think the child had been subjected to this torture whilst still alive.

Professor John Starling agreed to see her at eleven; she did not contact the other voodoo doctors, as she knew she would not have enough time before the briefing back at her own station.

When Anna was shown into his office at the London University campus on the edge of Bloomsbury, she was surprised by the Professor’s appearance. He was very tall and slender and wore a loose-fitting tracksuit. His greying-blond hair was long and tied in a tight ponytail. He had a rather handsome, long face with pale blue eyes. Incense had been used in the room and hung lightly in the air, a musky sweet smell.

‘Please come in, sit down,’ he said courteously, gesturing towards a low sofa.

He offered her water, not tea or coffee. The walls of the office were lined with rows of framed credentials. His qualifications ranged from Egyptology to Hieroglyphic analysis, Anthropology and Criminology. He saw her looking at them, and laughed.

‘I switch interests; I have a drawer full of even more certificates. I also collect Persian carpets but, as you can see,’ he tapped the floor with his foot, ‘this is not one of them.’

He apologized for his tracksuit, but said he was due to give a yoga session to some of his students. He then crossed his legs to sit in front of her on a woven Japanese mat. She found him fascinating — quite unlike any professor she had ever come across at Oxford. She was amused at the thought of Frank Brandon interacting with him; his cologne would compete with the smell of joss sticks that hung in the air.

Starling remained silent as she opened her briefcase and took out the details of the young boy’s body.

‘I’ve been shown these before,’ he said, as she passed them to him, then reached up for a large magnifying glass from a desk with stacks of files on every inch of it.

‘I was wondering if the markings could be made by some kind of voodoo ritual,’ Anna said.

‘No — well, not in any ceremony that I have come across, though it could be some amateur, professing knowledge of voodoo. Voodoo was originally used only for healing; it was very positive. Practitioners were kindly and knowledgeable people and probably came into the US via the slave trade. They had herbs for medical treatments. The slaves were snatched from their own environment, and many suffered severe mental disorientation; they would look to anyone who could ease that agony of separation. Voodoo priests and priestesses therefore became like present-day therapists, giving their patients mental and physical comfort. To dance into exhaustion was healing, to wail was a release, and it was not until many years later that the powers wielded by these priests led them to pervert the original concept.’

He continued to use the magnifying glass, carefully scrutinizing each photograph of the unidentified headless boy.

‘Haiti and many other offshoot countries began to elaborate the ceremonies, because they realized it would generate money. They discovered the power to manipulate their patients using drugs and mind games: the threat of voodoo is a very simple device used to exert control, but only those who believe in its powers will succumb to them.’

He suddenly looked up, and cocked his head to one side.

‘I remember when I was about sixteen years old, a group of us were messing around with a Ouija board. We sat holding hands in a darkened room. One of the kids placed a glass in the centre of the board and started asking questions in a weird high-pitched voice. There was a girl there, Christina, the same age, but from a pretty dysfunctional family. Anyway, we messed around and started pushing the glass backwards and forwards, when it suddenly shot towards her. I didn’t touch it, but I presumed the other kids were moving it.’

He frowned, turning away. ‘I am trying to recall exactly what she asked. I think it was, “Will I be married?” You know, nothing freaky. The glass spelled out NO and there was a lot of whispering and giggling as she asked, “Why not?” And the glass moved to the letter D, then E, then A, and T, H.’

He closed his eyes. ‘How the mind can play tricks. I don’t know which one of us pushed the glass towards her, but six weeks later she was found hanging from the banisters in her parents’ home.’

‘Was that why you have made a study of…’ Anna looked around the room at his many credentials.

‘Good God, no! I am first and foremost an Egyptologist; everything else is more or less simply down to interest and fascination.’

There was a long pause as Professor Starling returned to studying the photographs. Anna wondered if he had told the truth; perhaps it was he who had spelled out DEATH to the young teenage girl.

‘They have found no sexual abuse to the child, correct?’ the man asked.

‘Yes.’

He slowly gathered the photographs and stacked them neatly before passing them back to her. ‘His head and hands were removed, and the body dumped in a black plastic bin-liner in the canal, as if it was no longer of any use. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

He somehow managed to get from the cross-legged position to standing upright in one fluid movement. ‘I would say that the poor child was used by some perverted group of people; if they did not use the child for sex, they used him for some kind of ceremony. I cannot say categorically whether it was voodoo or Satanic.’

He went to a bookshelf and looked along it, trailing his fingers, then removed a book. Anna looked at the open page he offered her: there was a shrunken skull, hanging by its hair from a cross, and around the neck of a man wearing a white robe and carrying the burning cross was a necklace. Attached to the necklace were what looked like blackened birds’ claws.

‘This is a picture taken in around 1940 of a priest in Haiti. As you can see, he has the skull hanging from the cross, and around his neck the shrunken hands.’

Anna looked up from the book. ‘My God, do you believe that is why the child was mutilated?’

‘It’s possible. I would say the markings on his body were done for a sort of show. Whatever madman is behind this, he will be controlling and terrifying people for his own ends.’

Anna thought of Camorra. She explained the murder of Arthur Murphy and how Eamon Krasiniqe was in a stupor, starving himself to death. Could someone, with a single phone call, make a another person believe he was the walking dead?

Professor Starling shrugged. ‘Well, the prisoner would have to believe that whoever made the call could have that power. As I said, it’s all in the mind. I have witnessed cases where this zombie ailment had taken over certain people.’

He closed his eyes again, and quoted softly, ‘“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’”

Anna hesitated. ‘Milton?’

‘Indeed. Paradise Lost.’

‘May I borrow this book?’ She could see that he didn’t want her to, but he gave a small nod. ‘Is there any cure for the person suffering from the so-called zombie curse?’

‘Yes, but you have to tap into the brain.’ Again Starling returned to the bookcase. ‘I know they found no trace of drugs in the young boy, but there have been various cases in the US; there is a veterinary drug used to demobilize horses if they require treatment. It acts as a total freeze of all muscles in the body, but does not affect the heart. It would, if injected, bring on the exact symptoms of a zombie-like state.’

Anna made a note of the drug, as the Professor began discussing how, in Ancient Egypt, dead royalty often had their living servants buried alongside them, and how the latter were sedated with various herbs before the tombs were sealed. Anna took a look at her watch, but she remained listening for another ten minutes before she could make her exit. She had to interrupt him, and he was taken aback.

‘I really have to leave, Professor Starling. I can’t thank you enough for your time.’

‘Oh yes — well, my pleasure.’ He did not shake her hand but gave a small bow, and held his office door open. ‘You know where I am if you need to talk to me again.’

The entire team was gathered, some still eating their lunch. Anna tried to slide in unnoticed, but Langton turned towards her.

‘Cold better, is it, DI Travis?’

‘Yes, sir — thank you.’

Langton turned to everyone. ‘DI Travis did not have a cold; she took the day off to visit Wakefield prison and interview Idris Krasiniqe. Anyone else on my team who decides to take off on their own enquiries will be off the case. Is that understood? We work as a team and our loyalty is to each other; any findings, we pool together. I will not have any officer working with me who thinks they have the right to make any decisions without my approval.’

Anna flushed as everyone glanced towards her. She felt humiliated, which was obviously his intention, but then it got worse.

‘Firstly, DI Travis, would you please inform the team why you decided that you would, without permission from me, or bothering to tell the duty manager, make the journey to Wakefield prison?’

Anna licked her lips.

‘We’re waiting,’ Langton said, staring at her.

‘I … erm … felt that the enquiry into the murder of Gail Sickert and her child was becoming bogged down with other cases. We are accumulating so many suspects, and I just felt that I needed time out to really get my head around all the different possibilities. I apologize to you, the duty manager and everyone else if I acted out of line. I will obviously not do so again.’

‘Really,’ he said, then stuffed both hands into his pockets. ‘The truth is that DI Travis was concerned about my health. So, I would now like to assure everyone that, contrary to Travis’s concerns, I am, as you can see, perfectly fit — mentally and physically — to head up this enquiry and do not in any way feel that we are becoming bogged down with irrelevant issues. I am certain we are on the right track, just as I am certain that, unbelievable as it may seem, the tentacles that are embracing so many other crimes do link directly back to the death of Gail Sickert and her child.’

Langton picked up his marker pen.

‘I think this man Summers’s murder fits into our investigation as follows. As we know, Joseph Sickert needed a safe place to stay and, with the help of Rashid Burry, Gail was persuaded to take him in. This would have been very shortly after she moved in with Donald Summers. The older children were enrolled in a local school and Summers began work at the bungalow. A relationship then developed between Gail and Joseph Sickert, resulting in the death of Summers. Okay, let’s bring it all up to date. Sickert then cohabits with Gail. DI Travis visits Gail, trying to track down Arthur Murphy for the murder of Irene Phelps.’

Langton began to link everyone he named with thick red lines.

‘In the same halfway house where Murphy is hiding is Rashid Burry, the very man who arranged for Sickert to stay at Gail’s bungalow stroke piggery. In the process of arresting Murphy, DI Travis is seen by Rashid Burry.’ He turned to the team. ‘All still with me?’

There was a low murmur of assent; some of this, they already knew.

‘Okay. Burry visits Sickert to help him out with treatment for his sickle cell, tips off Sickert and goes to ground. Sickert starts to panic. Travis then visits Gail again, to sort out the issue of whether Gail had given her the photo of Murphy and Kramer willingly or not.’

Langton looked at Anna. ‘Travis is, it seems, constantly acting without back-up! An irate Sickert threatens her. Murphy gets sent down for murder, and is put into Parkhurst prison. Gail Sickert disappears, along with her children.’

They were now focused on the case they had all been brought in for.

‘Now we come back to the mounting coincidences. As we know, Idris Krasiniqe was arrested for the murder of Carly Ann North, the case I was investigating. During the interrogation, Idris gave the names of two accomplices. Lewis, Barolli and I tried to track these two guys down: guess where? A hostel in Brixton, a few streets away from the halfway house where Vernon and Murphy and Burry were living. You all know what happened to me; you all know, too, that Idris Krasiniqe then withdrew his statement and insisted he was acting alone. However, a white Range Rover was seen at the murder site. We have been unable to trace it, but whoever was driving it may have brought Carly Ann’s body to the wasteground and even driven Idris there, although he denied ever seeing the car. Remember, Idris Krasiniqe is an illegal immigrant.’

Langton was using his marker pen again, as he now drew a line to back to Murphy.

‘Arthur Murphy is murdered in Parkhurst by another prisoner, Eamon Krasiniqe. Eamon is also an illegal immigrant: so is Sickert, and so is Rashid Burry, which brings us to our main target. All we can be sure of is his surname: Camorra. He is a known people trafficker and a known voodoo dabbler, who’s already spent time in prison. This man links to all the others involved in the various murders.’

He turned to Anna, who walked from her desk to stand in front of the incident board. She opened her notebook, feeling very nervous after her dressing-down, but determined not to show just how humiliated she felt.

‘Idris Krasiniqe had stated that he had no known relatives in the UK when he was arrested for the murder of Carly Ann North. He had forged papers and passport. We now have confirmation from him that it was his brother, Eamon Krasiniqe, who killed Arthur Murphy in Parkhurst. After the murder, Eamon went into a catatonic state. He seems unable to speak or move and is refusing food. He is terror-stricken and believes that he has a voodoo hex on him, making him what they call the walking dead. Idris himself is afraid to come out of his cell at Wakefield prison, scared that a hex will be put on him too. I gained some reaction from Idris when I mentioned Rashid Burry and Joseph Sickert, but the biggest reaction came from Camorra’s name.’

Langton watched her closely as Anna talked the team through the rest of her interview with Idris and then her meeting with Professor Starling. She repeated much of what he’d explained about voodoo and the way drugs could be used to immobilize the victim’s muscles. She showed the photograph of the voodoo priest with the skull and dried hands used as a necklace.

Anna now had the team’s total attention.

‘If the body of the small boy in the canal was used by Camorra to put fear and terror into the men around him, I think if it’s in any way possible to remove Eamon Krasiniqe from Parkhurst and get treatment to save him, then I believe we will get the information we need from his brother Idris.’

Anna sipped some water before she continued. ‘It is hard to believe that after three weeks we still have no sighting of Sickert or the two children. This means either he is dead and the children, God help them, are also dead; or, they are being used by Camorra.’

Anna paused and checked her notes again. Langton was about to end the briefing, when she raised her hand.

‘I think we are missing a link — something we might have overlooked in the murder of Carly Ann North.’

Langton frowned.

‘It still doesn’t add up that her body wasn’t just dumped. Why was Idris attempting to sever her head and hands? Because she could have been identified by her prints from her previous arrests? She was a known prostitute and heroin addict; however, weeks before her death, she was attempting to straighten out her life. Did she know something? Had she seen something? I think we need to go back into that murder enquiry to see if there is any connection.’

‘You think we need to go back into the enquiry and see?’ Langton was angry, slapping his desk with the flat of his hand.

‘I can’t see why you are so furious.’

‘Can’t you? What are you insinuating — that I didn’t oversee that case properly? Not satisfied with trying to make me look like a prick on this one, you are now attacking my previous—’

She interrupted, going right back at him with as much anger. ‘You were in hospital for the latter part of the enquiry, and you were never able to go to the trial. Did you know that after your attack, Barolli had to take two weeks off because of the trauma of seeing you injured? Mike Lewis was left overseeing the trial and, like Barolli, he must have been traumatized; all I am saying is perhaps something was overlooked. Krasiniqe pleaded guilty, so the murder charges were virtually cut and dried before even going to trial.’

Langton took deep breaths, calming down.

‘I just want to look into her background a bit,’ Anna went on, also calming down. ‘We know she was a prostitute, we know she was brought up in various foster homes. But we also know that before her death she was off drugs and no longer working the streets. What was her relationship with Krasiniqe? Who else did she know, or what else did she know that we’ve never uncovered because the case was closed?’

Langton sat down behind his desk. ‘Get Mike Lewis in, let me talk to him.’

Anna nodded and walked out.

About half an hour later, Mike Lewis came up to her desk.

‘What the fuck is going on? I’ve just had him tear a strip off me! Suddenly you want to open up the Carly Ann murder? You put me right in it. I did my job, Anna, and I don’t like any implication that I skipped anything, all right?’

‘I am not implying that you did, Mike.’

‘Well, bloody Langton is.’

‘Then I’m sorry. Barolli was unable to work; that left you carrying the can for the trial.’

‘Krasiniqe bloody admitted it, for Chrissakes.’

‘Yes, I know — but why chop off her hands, try to decapitate her? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘No? Listen to me. These fucking illegal immigrants come out of war-torn areas, they cut up anything and anybody that stands in their way. If she refused his advances, if she did anything—’

‘But you don’t know why he killed her. He’s twenty-five years old, his brother’s just twenty-two—’

‘She was raped,’ Lewis snapped.

‘I know that, but what do you know about where she was and who she was seeing before she was killed?’

Mike Lewis sighed. ‘She’d been on the game since she was a kid, she’d left her foster home years before, she’d lived rough — what more do you need to know about her?’

‘Well, did she come into contact with Camorra? Do we know that?’

‘No, I don’t bloody know that. Until recently, I’d never even heard of him.’

‘Right. The Krasiniqe brothers may have been working for him; maybe Carly Ann also knew him, and when she stopped selling her tricks, stopped pumping herself full of heroin, maybe, just maybe…’

Lewis turned away. ‘I’ll check into what we have on record for her.’

It was obvious that Mike Lewis really had it in for her. Anna could see by the covert looks of the rest of the team that they were all ganging up against her too.

She felt slightly better when Langton called her into his office.

‘I’ve got Mike pulling out everything we have on Carly Ann, but I want you to cover for him as well. If you re-interview anyone connected to the case, then you go with him.’

‘He won’t like it.’

‘Tough shit. Get on with it.’

‘Right. We also need to double-check these two guys that Krasiniqe put into the frame before he withdrew his statement. We all know what happened when you went to interview them; what we don’t know is if the names were for real or if there is any connection to Camorra.’

‘Both names proved to be bullshit,’ Langton said. ‘They could have been shipped out of the country or Christ knows what, but we could find no record of them from immigration. Krasiniqe may not even have known their real names. Those guys disappeared into thin air.’

‘But they were staying close to Rashid Burry.’

‘Yes, but we can’t find that bastard either; he’s gone to ground.’ Langton gave a mirthless laugh, raising his hands. ‘It’s bloody mind-blowing. We can’t trace Sickert, the two missing children, we can’t find the guy that ripped me to shreds…’ He opened a file and flipped it round to face her. ‘Here’s the descriptions: one of them had two gold teeth — I see them in my nightmares. Maybe it was Rashid Burry. But how many of these guys have gold-capped teeth? The other, the one with the machete, is a blur. I couldn’t tell you what age, how tall; it happened so fast. One minute I was moving up the stairs, the next…’

Langton made a gesture of defeat, and Anna asked if she could take the file and work on it. ‘Yeah, take it.’

She flipped through it there and then. Attached was a picture of Carly Ann that Anna had never seen before; she had only ever seen the brutal photographs taken at the murder site and on the pathologist’s slab.

Langton’s desk phone rang and he snatched it up, listened for a few moments and then replaced the receiver.

‘Mike Lewis is waiting; he’s contacted the woman Carly Ann was staying with.’

Anna looked up from the file. ‘She was beautiful,’ she murmured.

‘What?’

‘I said, she was beautiful.’ Anna stared down at the photograph. Carly Ann had tawny skin, perfect features and wide, slanting blue eyes. She was tall and slender, at least five feet eight, and in the photograph, her lips were parted in a seductive, almost secret smile. Around her neck was a thick gold chain and a cross.

Mike Lewis was driving, Anna beside him in the unmarked patrol car.

‘I didn’t know how beautiful she was,’ Anna said, staring out of the window.

‘Didn’t look that way on the table,’ he grunted. ‘Her eyes were bulging and her throat had deep lacerations. I think she’d put up quite a fight to stay alive.’

‘When she was found, did she have a thick gold necklace round her neck?’

‘No, like I said, it was almost severed. There was a lot of blood.’

‘So Krasiniqe made an attempt to run?’

‘Yeah, he tried, but the cop held him down; he got some back-up, and they took him into the local nick. We got called in the following morning.’

‘Did he confess straight away?’

‘Well, he didn’t need to, did he? He had her blood all over his clothes and the blade dripping with it in his hand.’

‘Did he appear to be drugged?’

‘Dunno. By the time we saw him, he was cowering in his cell at the station. If he was drugged, he didn’t appear that way — unless whatever he’d taken had worn off.’

Anna removed from the file Krasiniqe’s statement. It was short and stated that he had killed Carly Ann after he had raped her. Anna asked where the rape had taken place.

‘He had no known address, and said he had been living rough, which is where he said he knew the victim from.’

‘But you don’t know where?’

Mike Lewis sighed with irritation. ‘Two days later, Langton got cut to shreds, Anna. We had a suspect in custody who admitted the murder.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. Please, Mike, don’t be so defensive. I am just trying to piece it together myself. If one of these men was Camorra, it’s odd that when Langton was attacked, he didn’t recognize him.’

‘It happened so fucking fast none of us had a clear recollection of either of the bastards.’

Anna nodded, deciding to change the subject. If Langton now recognized Camorra, he was not admitting it to anyone.

‘What about this white Range Rover the police officer said he saw at the murder site?’

‘Sorry?’

Anna turned over another page and read on. A witness had seen the vehicle parked close to the murder site: black tinted windows, engine running. ‘When these two other guys with Krasiniqe ran off, did they go to the Range Rover? Drive off in it?’

‘No, it moved off as soon as the uniformed cop walked up. We have tried to trace it, with no luck.’

Anna shrugged, and said that it seemed all along the line they had not had much luck.

They did not really make any further conversation until they reached the estate in Chalk Farm. Graffiti was everywhere and, although it looked as if the council had made an attempt to clear the place up, it was nevertheless a very rough and tough area. On the walkways outside the flats hung strings of washing; Anna and Mike bent beneath them, as they made their way to number forty-one.

‘Okay, the place is rented by a Dora Rhodes. Well, she’s listed as the occupant, but Christ only knows how many times it may have changed hands.’

‘You interviewed her, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah, she came into the station and identified Carly Ann, as she had no family. She runs a community centre.’

‘Doesn’t sound like the usual flatmate for a prostitute.’

‘She’s not usual, believe you me. Carly Ann had only just started living here, and this Dora was helping her get clean.’

They ducked under more washing to stand outside a blue painted door, rang the bell and waited. Anna noticed that the letterbox was hammered down, but the brass had been polished. The door was opened by a young overweight black woman, with a floral scarf wrapped around her head.

‘Hi, come on in, I’ve been waiting for you.’

Dora wore a multi-coloured African wrap over a bright red T-shirt, and rubber flip-flops on her plump little feet.

‘Okay, sit yourselves in here and I’ll bring in some coffee.’

Anna sat on a bright orange sofa which had many stains, as did the carpet, but the room was clean and bright, with children’s paintings on the walls. Dora returned with a tray of mugs of coffee and cookies. She placed it down on a white hand-painted coffee-table.

‘Help yourselves,’ she said, as she plumped herself down in a sort of bean-bag chair. She was at least eighteen stone, with big muscular arms and a wobbly belly, but her hands, like her feet, were small. She wore a row of silver bangles, which she twisted round with her free hand. ‘So, you come about my little darlin’ Carly Ann?’

‘Yes.’ Anna picked up her coffee; Mike was already munching a cookie and seemed content to sit back and let the women get on with it. ‘I was not on the original enquiry, so I would like to ask if you could tell me as much about Carly Ann as possible.’

Dora nodded. ‘Well, be about nine months before she died that she moved in here with me. I don’t often take kids in, you know; if you start, next minute you got a houseful, then the council will kick you out. Anyways, when I met her, there was just something about her; she came into the centre and said she needed help. She was on heroin and had been for a number of years, and she was selling herself to get the money to pay for it. I think she’d lived rough, you know; she was just a kid that ran away from one foster home after another. They all try to head to London, reckon the streets here are paved with gold, but then it’s too late to turn back, and with Carly Ann being such a looker, the pimps were fast to get a hold of her.’

Dora took a deep breath. ‘My Carly Ann was one of the most perfect creatures I have ever set eyes on. She was part-Jamaican, part-white, and her skin was a flawless soft tawny shade; she had this curly black hair, like silk. When you think of her living rough and pumping that shit into her veins, and still looking gorgeous…’ She shook her head.

Anna nodded, and said that she had only seen one photograph apart from the mortuary shots. Dora got up, opened a drawer and took out a number of snapshots.

‘Here she is. She was trying her best to get clean, and I would give her a few quid to help me out at the centre. I mostly deal with young kids, so I put her in touch with a drug rehab, and she’d go there in the mornings and work for me afternoons. You know, she wasn’t using when they found her, that’s what makes it all the worse — she wasn’t drugged. I don’t believe that she was back on the game, no way. She swore blind to me that she would never turn another trick; she hated it, and the more she was around me and the kids, the more she realized what she had been doing to herself. I held that girl in my arms when she sobbed and told me that I was her only angel, she’d never had no love, no parents; until we met, my Carly Ann had never known a decent home, and you should have seen how she flowered. I mean, she wasn’t all perfect and she could have troubled times and dark times, but when she laughed, it was sunny.’

Anna looked over the snapshots of the dead girl: bending over a few kids with a birthday cake, blowing out candles; at a theme park, her on a slide roaring with laughter.

‘On the photograph we have at the station, Carly Ann is wearing a very thick gold chain,’ she said. ‘Do you know where she got it from?’

Dora shook her head.

‘After she died, were any of her belongings still here?’

‘Yes, still here — no one else to claim them, I suppose. ’Cos I been so distraught, I just never got round to sorting them and passing them onto some needy girl. I’ll do it eventually.’

‘What about boyfriends?’

‘All the while she was here with me, she was only out late a few times. She went off once or twice for a weekend, disappeared without a word, and when she come back, I give her a dressing-down and a warning. I said after the last time, if she ever did it again, she was out. She cried and said she was sorry, then it all blew over and she settled down; be about a month later, she didn’t come home again, but this time it was a couple of months. I got worried ’cos she was away for so long. I even went out on the streets looking for her, then I read about the murder.’ Dora wiped her eyes with a tissue.

‘So you never met anyone she was friendly with?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ever see anyone in a white Range Rover?’

Dora nodded. ‘I never saw the driver, seein’ as the windows was blacked out, but I saw that car a few times, waiting down below. Carly Ann never went out when it was there. I think it might have been a pimp, or someone she’d known. I even said to her that if she wanted me to call the police on him, I would — but she wouldn’t let me. Then it just stopped coming round, so we never contacted the cops.’

‘Did she ever mention to you her killer, Idris Krasiniqe?’

‘No.’

Anna stood up. ‘May I see her things, please?’

Dora nodded, and plodded in her flip-flops to the door. ‘It won’t take a minute. I got them all in a suitcase.’

Anna followed Dora along the narrow hallway, Mike just behind her. The box room was very small, with just a single bed and a narrow wardrobe.

‘Like I said, it wasn’t much I could offer her, but she loved this room; said it was her home.’ Dora picked up a cheap brocade suitcase. ‘This was hers, and I just put everything in it. Well, I got my friend to, as I was too upset, but there’s all her things in here. I also got Esther to list everything, so if you take it away, I know what’s in it.’

Anna smiled. ‘I won’t need to take it, Dora, but I would like to look through it, if you don’t mind.’

‘You go ahead.’

Anna opened the suitcase and started to sift through the neatly folded clothes. Some were cheap market purchases, but others surprised her: they were designer labels. She took out her notebook and began to list everything, including the sexy underwear. The case had a musty, musky smell, perhaps from her old perfume. There was a pink satin bag filled with toiletries, and a square carved box. Anna eased off the lid, and started looking at the jumble of necklaces, rings and bracelets. Like her clothes, some were cheap baubles, but then Anna picked up the heavy gold necklace. It was eighteen carat and weighed a lot; there was a matching bracelet and two diamond rings. There was also a clatter of gold bangles, all heavy African gold.

‘What you got?’ Mike Lewis leaned on the doorframe.

‘There’s a lot of very good jewellery here, solid gold and two big diamonds; I’d say this was worth about ten, fifteen grand.’

He whistled. ‘If she was just a cheap tart hooked on heroin, she had to have some heavy clients; all this is worth money.’

‘Like Dora said, she was a beauty. Maybe she walked away from being a good earner for her pimp? You know what these creeps are like.’

As Anna put the clothes back into the case, she felt around the edges for anything she’d not seen, and patted the lining. There were no handbags or purses, or any sign of anything like letters or address books.

Mike and Anna rejoined Dora, who had made fresh coffee, even though they didn’t want it.

‘No handbag or letters?’ Anna queried.

‘No, that’s what she came with. I don’t even know where she was living before, but I think wherever it was, she got out fast — you know, did a runner.’

‘Maybe from a pimp?’

‘Maybe. She wouldn’t tell me, said she was ashamed of her past life. I dunno, only sixteen and with a past life; makes me sad.’

‘She has some very valuable jewellery.’

Dora looked up, surprised.

‘There are gold bangles and necklaces, diamond rings.’

Dora shook her head. ‘Maybe that’s what they were after.’

Anna leaned forwards, suddenly alert. ‘What was that?’

‘I was broken into just after she died; they made a mess of the place, but nothing was taken. All her things was packed and locked in the case — I had it under my bed. My next-door neighbour disturbed them and called the cops. They’d gone by the time they got here.’

‘Did you also speak to the police?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I did, an’ I also give them the registration number of the car, just in case the guy came back.’

‘I’m sorry, which car?’

‘That white one; the one you asked me about before — the Range Rover. I took his number-plate down when he was hovering around Carly Ann.’

Anna glanced at Mike Lewis, then back to Dora.

‘I think we just got lucky,’ she murmured.